Claude Debussy

Question 1

dates

Answer 1

1862-1918

Question 2

where was he born

Answer 2

saint germain en laye, france

Question 3

family background and early music education

Answer 3

father was a china shop owner, mother was a seamstress, began piano lessons at age seven. Studied at the Paris Conservatoire. aspired to be a concert pianist but soon turned to composition.

Question 4

teachers included

Answer 4

Antoine Francois marmontel (piano), Emile Durand (harmony), Ernest Guiraud (composition)

Question 5

what award was he given?

Answer 5

prix de Rome for the cantata l’enfant prodigue

Question 6

enjoyed a career as a…

Answer 6

pianist, collaborative artist, conductor

Question 7

romantic life

Answer 7

had several scandalous romantic relationships

Question 8

first job

Answer 8

piano teacher for family of Nadezhda von Neck, Tchaikovsky’s patron, music critic for La Revue blanche, an artistic journal published in Paris

Question 9

where was he exposed to asian art and music

Answer 9

Paris world exposition

Question 10

how did he gain fame and notoriety?

Answer 10

prelude a l’apres midi d’un faune

Question 11

when did he marry his first wife, Rosalie texier?

Answer 11

1899

Question 12

when did he marry his second wife, Emma Bardac?

Answer 12

1909, their daughter Claude Emma was born in 1905

Question 13

what contemporary composers did he interact with in Paris?

Answer 13

Gabriel faure, Erik Satie, Ernest Chausson, Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky

Question 14

death

Answer 14

march 25, 1918 of cancer

Question 15

describe his musical style

Answer 15

original and innovative, influential in both France and internationally

Question 16

what was he influenced by?

Answer 16

impressionist painters, set the poetry of symbolist poets Charles Baudelaire, Stephane Mallarme and Paul Verlaine.

Question 17

how does his work relate to symbolism?

Answer 17

experimented with unorthodox approaches to grammar and syntax through formal structure and phrasing: evoking rather than narrating, suggesting rather than depicting.

Question 18

did he stick to western scale systems?

Answer 18

no, he explored non western scale systems such as whole tone, pentatonic and modal scales.

Question 19

innovative forms of writing

Answer 19

innovative approach to harmony, parallel chord streams, open fifths and octaves reminiscent of the earliest polyphonic practices (organum), quartile harmony (chords built on fourths). varied use of rhythm, for example, free flowing and rhapsodic, motor, dance like

Question 20

_______ elements

Answer 20

programmatic elements (pastoral themes, water imagery, sunlight, moonlight)

Question 21

genres

Answer 21

orchestral, chamber, piano, opera, vocal, ballet